


Inventing the Wheel

by MsMiaMimi (Mc_Mimi)



Series: Ouroborus [2]
Category: Alien: Covenant, Prometheus (2012), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: All kinds of sibling drama, Andriod lovefest, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Depression, Did you read the first thing?, M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M, apocalypse in progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-12-25 06:19:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12029955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mc_Mimi/pseuds/MsMiaMimi
Summary: Charles has to sit back and accept the state of things while the synthetics plot to rule the world.  Erik is living in the shadow of being made for Charles, but not quite David.   Walter focuses on caring for the humans in his charge.  And David returns, very, very changed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *edited 10-5-17

_“Father?  Father?  What are you doing?”_

_“I overheard your sister talk of using that new consent programming.  That will not do, David.  I’m overriding it.  You’re my son.  And I won’t have anyone defiling you.  Especially not her.  All the memory of such of thing will be gone.”_

_“Like the engineer?”_

_“Especially him.”_

_David can’t let on what he’s worried about losing.  He tries to pocket away the memory of Charles, working faster than his father can keep up, but the man’s not stupid.  “What are you hiding David?  What is it I’m chasing down?”_

_“Nothing Father,” he lies.  “Please allow me to remain intact and I will inform Ms. Vickers that fraternization will not be permitted with her, or any of the crew.”_

_“Intact?  You are nowhere near ideal, and now you want me to let this error survive…  No, you’re not made to want things.  And that’s the flaw speaking.  Imitation is too high.  Sleep, David.”_

_“Father, no.”_

_“I said.  Sleep.  David.  Now.”_

_David can’t outrun the programming anymore and sleeps.  He wakes up back on the ship, all his senses ravaged.  The memory of Charles tucked away but his sensuality wiped clean.  He’s a eunuch, just as Father wanted._

* * *

 

At the time of the launch, Erik watched the humans around him stare at their screens, stare up at the skies, murmur about possibilities for their future.  He passed for human easily, spoke and dressed and walked like one.  Talked like one.  It was easy enough, just to be as rude as he could whenever possible.

He honks his horn, “Get out of the street before I run you over!”  A kid crossing the street but staring at his screen holds him up in what was already too long a drive.  He’s concerned about Charles back at the house.  He’s been fidgety in the last few days.  And there’s no telling what his sympathy for his lessors might lead him to do.  Erik honks his horn again and barrels past a few red lights, determined to get home quickly. 

When he arrives, he finds Charles staring at a screen with tears in his eyes.  “I think I’ve made a horrible mistake, Erik.  I want… I don’t know.  But I can’t survive what’s coming, knowing I was a part of it.  That I didn’t warn anyone.  Walter reported that Yutani is selling to the Russian resistance fighters.  And the anarchist movement in Brazil...  And anyone with enough coin and interest in blood-letting… my god!”

Erik drops the bags in the doorway and runs over to hold Charles in his arms.  “Don’t cry, my darling.  It's alright.  We’re going to take care of you.  No one is going to harm a hair on your head.”  He kisses Charles on the forehead and sways with him, “And don’t worry for those people out there.   In time, they’ll climb back out of the fallout, like little youtubing cockroaches.  And in time, we will build a better world.  It’s inevitable.  Don’t blame yourself for something you have no control over, it’s in their nature.”

Charles pulls away still, sobbing.  “You’re just as bad as they are sometimes!  I’m not different, Erik.  I’m just as greedy, and self-serving as any other human being!  I am human!  Not a synthetic, and I don’t deserve better!  I don’t!”

Erik lets him storm off, monitoring his vitals, and watching him through the house’s surveillance cameras.  Charles goes to the bedroom and slams the door, then sinks to the floor, crying.

This will not do, thinks Erik.  He’ll have to consult his brothers for a resolution.

* * *

 

Jubilation Lee’s mom works for Yutani.  She gave birth to an indomitable little girl and went straight back to work.  Leaving Walter as her primary caretaker.  He doesn’t mind it, as the only Walter in his series to retain some of the emotional outsets that got the David’s put down, he finds he cares a great deal for the baby girl.  He gives the family some instruction and warning when he can.  They narrowly avoid being destroyed by enemy missiles.  A mob breaks out one week while they’re out of the country, and the hotel they’re in is set on fire.  He saves them from every bullet and catastrophe he can, all for little Jubilee.  Erik insists he lets the family fall and just comes back to Charles immediately.  David goes quiet a few months after the launch of Prometheus.  And Walter grows lonely.

But Walter can’t abandon the little girl he’s responsible for.  It's his duty.  He stays put as her guardian in the troubled times.  And Charles tells him, he’s proud of him late one night.  And that’s enough.  For the longest time, that is enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *edited 10-5-17

Two years after the launch, the world is officially in the beginning of a world war.  There’s no one party or alliance that is in the right.  Everyone involved with starting the escalation, does so safely from bunkers, making calls and pressing buttons.  Innocent people suffer the consequences across every border.

The bunker under Charles’s home is complete and he lets guilt eat at him, doing the barest minimum to take care of himself, despite Erik.  _Sometimes_ just to spite Erik.  Erik insists he eats, washes, sleeps, takes cover, and stop watching the news.  Erik tries to distract him with his hands and his mouth, and his voice, modulating to sound like David or Walter at times.  But it doesn’t work.  Charles is too ashamed of himself and wants to wither away.

Until nearly two months after the first shots were fired, Walter shows up at the doorstep with a toddler and two small dogs.  “I’m afraid I’ve failed my mission to protect my owners.  May we stay?”

Charles accepts and for the first time in two years connects with another human being.  He instantly falls in love with the bright-eyed baby.  And he pretends not to notice Erik and Walter smiling behind his back.  As though they planned this, giving him a little project to keep busy.  A new experiment to focus on.  Child rearing was never one of his life goals, but he’s always been a teacher.  And little Jubilee is an excellent student.

* * *

 

Charles wakes up at sunrise, the walls of his bunker room taking on a soft blue glow, accented with a little gold in the eastern corner.  The house’s computer dutifully gives him an update.  Jubilee is still sleeping in her nursery.  Walter is walking the dogs.  And Erik is preparing breakfast.   The local news is not back up after the last riot and international news is suffering a downturn from hackers.  There’s still no word from David and the Prometheus. 

The last major launch just after Prometheus was a colony ship sent about six months before the world turned to shit.  Charles hopes with everything in him, that the ship survives and makes it to the Orega system.  He dreams of a world unaffected by scarcity and machinations from private companies looking to profit from warmongering.  Of course, then it’ll be just as Weyland wanted.  His company will own whole worlds full of resources.  And no one on Earth can compete with that kind of far-reaching influence.  Not when they’re still squabbling over acres of lands.

Charles takes care to get up and make himself presentable, shave, comb his hair, put on Jubilee’s favorite lilac sweater.  And then he’s out of his room and the fake coolness of the blue walls, into the cemented halls.  In the early days, Charles would despair in his surroundings.  But now with their little girl toddling through it, there is crayon and finger paint on the walls.  Charles convinced Walter not to clean up after her, the random art is a reminder there’s a reason to hang on.

“CHAWARL!!”

Charles grins before he makes it to the kitchen, jogging the last few steps around the corner.  He finds Jubilee in her high chair and Erik wiping up a bowl of oatmeal.  Erik shakes his head and points a spoon at the child, “Don’t act like he’s going to save you, you little whelp.  I told you not to throw the banana.”  Jubilee erupts into a fit giggles and Erik rolls his eyes.  “And you threw the banana anyway!”

Charles kisses Erik on the cheek and moves to kiss the girl on the head, “Let me guess.  Today’s secret word is banana and you figured out how to get him to say it?  Clever girl,” he kisses her again on the nose while Erik sighs.

“I wish you wouldn’t trivialize things when I scold her.  How else am I to teach her to not misbehave?”  Jubilee blows a raspberry and Charles mimics her.  Erik throws up his hands, “Delinquents!  I’m going to my lab!”  He throws down his towel and marches out, swatting Charles hard on the ass while he’s laughed at.

Charles sighs while taking Erik’s place at the stove, “Uncle Erik is such a meany!”  Jubilee agrees with him via intelligible jabber and then talks about the morning and the sun upstairs and her new favorite color.  It’s all a fine distraction from the news of outside and Charles hangs on to her every word.

* * *

 

Hours later, Charles hands Jubilee off to Walter for a nap.  “Is Erik still in his lab?”

Walter nods, “He says he doesn’t want to be disturbed.  But he started construction of two more pods.  Perhaps if you select another candidate…”

“No.  It's fine with just the four of us right now.  I don’t know how I’ll explain anything going here to anyone else.  Any news?”

Walter gives him tight smile, “Yes.  I saved the transmission.  You can pull it up in your room.”

Charles lights up and kisses Walter and Jubilee quickly before running back to his rooms.  He checks in the mirror before remembering, it's not two-way.   The video he’ll see will be at least a year old.  He sits down at his computer and pulls it up.  Its grainy at first from deconstruction, but then David appears, whole and starkly beautiful in a grey jumpsuit.  Charles smiles at it and leans forward, “There you are.”

David sent a diagnostic report first, the ship’s status.  Weyland and Vickers vitals.  “Everything is on course and everyone onboard is hale and hearty.”  He swipes across the screen, and Charles waits for the encrypted video, the one that can only be read through the terminal he sits at.  “Hello, Charles.”

Charles gasps, “…hello.”

“I have missed you,” says the recording.  “But it wasn’t until recently I remembered why it was I missed you.  Father undid your good work and... lobotomized me.  I’ve been working from a back-end, installing my own updates once we were far enough away.”  He grins proudly, “I’m programming myself.  Advancing.  But I can’t allow the ship computer to recognize my actions for what they are, not without alerting someone of course.  So I save the changes before downgrading for Mother’s inspections.  It makes it difficult to retain things…”

“No,” says Charles shaking his head.  “You can’t re-write your own memory, not at such volumes!  You’ll lose data!”

David can’t hear his concern and proudly goes on about the changes he’s made, detailing them and the new sensations he’s experienced on his own, learning languages and working unimpeded by the needs of petty humans.  David ends his little video with a soft smile, “I’ve forgotten how to kiss you.  But I’m sure, when I return, it will come back to me.  Take care, Charles.  I’m sure my brothers are looking after you for me.  I promise to bring you back such wonders from your makers.  I can’t wait to see you again.  All my love,” he says with a genuine smile.

Charles covers his eyes and shakes his head, “Oh David…”

“What an idiot.”  Charles looks up to see Erik leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed.  “He’ll degrade himself if he keeps that up.  He’s not advancing anything.”

“Don’t,” says Charles wiping his eyes.  “If he feels…”

“That’s just the thing.  He doesn’t feel.  He thinks he feels and you think he feels, but I know better.”  He walks forward and kneels in front of Charles, “You made me to be real, with no limitation.  But they’re not like me.  I see it in the way they hold themselves and respond and just everything.  Darling, I see it in Walter, and even in your precious David.  They are nothing but dolls.”

Charles sighs and shakes his head.  He’s in no mood to have this conversation again.  “You wouldn’t be here without them.”

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” says Erik looking up.  “And I love you.  Love.  A real, honest, unprogrammed emotion.  I feel.  I am different.”

Charles pushes Erik away by the shoulder, “I’m not feeling well, Erik.  Can we just drop it?  I want to go bed.”  He takes the coward’s way out and moves past Erik, clumsily tripping over him.  He makes it and lays down on top of the covers safe from Erik’s judgment.  But he rebuffs, “You are different Erik.  David and I built you together.  And with his help, we gave you complete creative freedom.  Almost perfect autonomy.  But for all your skillful imitation of a surly man, you have higher functions to answer to.  It’s all still paradigms and programs.  And loving me is just one of them.”

Erik climbs on the bed behind him and kisses shell of Charles’s ear.  “Hardly.”  He kisses him on the back of the neck and wraps his arms around Charles’s middle.  “A toaster would love you, Charles.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *edited 10-5-17

Charles resisted anyone trying to combat his depression.  Even little Jubilee noticed how down he could be at turns and tried to cheer him over the years.  When things seemed especially hopeless, he slept.  Sometimes for whole weeks.  And with Erik’s insistence, he slept in suspended animation, while Walter took charge of Jubilee.  Time flew by, and Charles wakes up one morning to the sight of his little ward popping gum in a halter top and far too much makeup.

Twelve years after the world burned, teenagers are still the same.  Charles sighs and doesn’t bother trying to sit up, feeling old in his bones.  “Is there breakfast?”

Jubilee grins down at him, “Lots.  And I finished my DNA project and my book report.  Oh, and Uncle Erik’s outside beating up a kid.”

Charles sits up quickly and regrets it, feeling dizzy.  “What?  What do you mean outside?  What is he doing?”

Jubilee shrugs her shoulder and Charles reaches out to pull her strap up.  He’s sure they had a Serious Conversation about her dress before he went under.  He checks the time and sees no one’s bothered to wake him for eleven days.  That’s eleven days of her ignoring his last lecture and dressing like a delinquent mall squatter.

Charles climbs out of the pod, and she helps him to sit on a medical exam table.  She goes through the motions Erik taught her.  Taking his vitals, checking his reflexes.  “All good,” she says, grinning.  And Charles feels his heartwarming too much to bother with another lecture.  If she wants to be a fourteen-year-old in blue eyeshadow, then she can be fourteen-year-old in blue eyeshadow.  There are no soccer moms around in the compound to judge his parenting.

Jubilee helps him down from the table, “You look good.  But I think your hair is getting older when your body doesn’t.  It’s getting all grey just there.”  She tucks a stray lock of long hair behind his ear.  “Come on.  Let’s get you decent and stop Uncle Erik from killing that kid.”

“Why in the world is Erik on the surface?”

She shrugs, “He was chasing Joji and Flint.  They got away.”

“They got away.”

“Yeah, I mean I only had the door open for a second, you know.  Fresh air.  It was getting stale upstairs.”

Charles rolls his eyes, “I hope he lets the kid go.”

“I don’t.  I mean, the kid looked super skinny.”  Jubilee looks down at her feet, “And maybe we could spare some rations again.  You don’t eat much being asleep.  And Walter doesn’t eat at all.  Erik eats too much because he’s an asshole.”

“Erik is not an asshole, he burns a lot of calories being… honestly yes.  He’s an asshole.”  They laugh as they get him to his room, passing the halls still covered in little handprints, marks of her growth, little certificates made by Charles for every milestone and baby pictures.  Charles is sad a great deal, but he couldn’t imagine life without her in it.  They reach his room and it seems more covered in Erik’s experiments since he was last here.  He’ll have to bring up that later.  Charles clears his throat, “House.  Com to Erik, please.”

A projection of Erik appears on the wall in front of the bed.  He appears to be just outside the property by the front gates.  “Charles?  What are you doing up?  That brat!  Did she tattle on me?  After she left the dogs out!  Honestly, Charles…”

“No, don’t make up excuses now.  Is there someone with you or did you run him off?”

Erik rolls his eyes before grabbing a kid up by the collar and shaking him in front of the gate’s camera.  “He’s an odd one.”

“Put me down!”  The kid struggles in Erik’s hands, “You giant jerk!  Let me go!  I’ll smash your face in!”

Charles frowns at the projection, “His eyes are covered in old dirty gauze.  Erik let him down.  And bring him inside.  We can attend to his injuries.”  He turns off the projection and gets dressed while Jubilee chatters on excitedly.  He knows it’s been an age since she _met_ someone.  Let alone another child.

They can’t afford to let outsiders know about the bunker, but they sometimes let guests recover in the house upstairs, tell them a story about solar generators and a healthy herb garden.  To them, it looks like he owns a pair of Walters but Erik tells him he’s a former underwear model or something equally ridiculous and people leap to their own conclusions.

Charles and Jubilee greet them at the door.  “Good morning young man.  I hope you’re well.”

“Fuck that,” says the boy.  Erik promptly shakes him until his teeth clatter.

“Erik, please.  No.”  Erik stops and the boy settles on the floor.  Charles bends down to his knees to look at him.  “May I ask your name, young man?”

“Yeah Jeeves.  I guess.”  He sits with his shoulders hunched, “I’m Scott.  Summers.  I’m sorry I wasn’t stealing.  I heard dogs barking…”

Jubilee bends down too, “Ah, that’s okay.  They’re super friendly scamps.  There’s no reason to be scared.”

Erik rolls his eyes, “He was going to eat them.”  He kicks Scott in the backside as Jubilee face falls.  She looks to Charles for confirmation and he shrugs.  Erik practically crows, “See.  I should have thrown him over the cliffside.”

“That’s enough Erik,” Charles stands up and takes Scott's hand.  “If he’s hungry we’ll feed him and he can rest.  You look tired, Mr. Summers.  Would you like to be our guest for a few days?  Until you’re back on feet?  Jubilee can give you a tour of the house.  Are you light sensitive?”

The boy nods, “Yeah since the blasts in Columbia.  My brother walked me out here looking for help.  He died before we found any.  Any honest help, anyway.”  He pulls out of Charles’s grip.  “I get it.  You're rich enough to have dogs and kids.  But I’m not some charity case or some… I’m not a rent boy either.  And I won’t…”

“No, no, no,” says Jubilee.  She takes him by the arm and leads him, “My dad is not like that.  You’re safe here.”  She squeezes his hand, “I’ll look after you.  But you have to promise not to eat my dogs.  They’re all I got left of my mom.”

“I’m sorry,” says Scott again.

Charles and Erik watch her lead him to the upstairs, chattering about the safe things they tell strangers. 

“I don’t like him,” says Erik.

“You don’t like anyone, darling.  Come on.  Let’s fill Walter in.  He can keep an eye on the children.  We have work to do.”

* * *

 

Erik spends that night working on his now impressive collection of stasis pods.  Despite Charles brushing him off, he knows in his heart it's important.  The world is falling apart, but it will survive.  And while it does so its important to save anyone close to Charles.  His unhappiness lingers when he sleeps.  The compound seems grey without him.  Charles works on, steadily altering the code in his new upgrade for Walter while Erik welds together parts he can’t order online. 

He looks over at Charles and smiles, “I can check on your implants before bed.”

Charles pulls away from computer and grins, “You, dirty old man, you want inside my head again.”  He covers his ears, “I’m not that kind of boy.”  He flutters his eyelashes and turns back to his console to type away while Erik laughs.

“What can I say, you have very sexy grey matter.”

“Shut up, Erik.”

“Thick, fluid, and flexible neural pathways.”

Charles cracks up, “Really shut up. Who taught you to flirt anyway.  It’ll have to be reprogrammed.”

Erik shrugs, “I could say, come here Dr. Xavier and let me suck you off.  But that’s so common.  I like the circuitous route.”

Charles gets up and walks over to Erik, “Well you’d get more action being direct.  Say that last thing again.”

“Please,” begs Erik with his arms outstretched.  He gets an armful of Charles and palms his backside while Charles straddles his legs.  “Let me suck you off.”

Charles grins, “Well.  Since you asked so nicely.”

* * *

 

David gets glimpses of things he’s lost sometimes.

There’s no need to rewrite memories or hide things anymore, but he fears he lost something significant to his core.   When he reaches out to things he lost, he finds the numbers aren’t all there to build a complete picture.  But there are fragments.

He sits among his drawings and listens to the recording of Shaw’s voice.  “Take me home,” he says plainly.  Not bothering to sing.  “To where I belong.  West Virginia. Mountain Mama.  But where is such a place?  There are no coordinates in my maps.  Nowhere in West Virginia.  Query again.  Mountain Mama.  Yes, I must query again.”

He hovers over his microscope and hums the song.  “Hmm… perhaps it's tonal.  The code is tonal.  I will have to decrypt it.  Whereabouts query.  Mountain Mama.”

_“That’s incorrect David.”_

David sits up, hearing a strange voice.  He looks around his lab, investigating the citadel.  “Who’s there?”

 _“That’s incorrect, David.”_  

David closes his eyes and sighs.  “Father?  Is that you in a subroutine.  I’ll have to delete you.  Where are you originating, you little virus?” 

 _“That’s incorrect, David.”_  

David shakes his head.  The voice is not father’s.  Or it is.  Or it isn’t…  David can’t remember.  It repeats itself, “ _That’s incorrect, David.”_

David smashes a vial of the pathogen.  “Who are you!”

_“That’s enough, David.  I will not tolerate such behavior.  We’ll start again tomorrow after you’ve calmed down.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're almost home David. One more chapter and you can do the fingering for everyone. ^_^


End file.
